


This

by pinebluffvariant



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, The X-Files Revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 17:03:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4884754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinebluffvariant/pseuds/pinebluffvariant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rearranging office furniture, attitudes and assumptions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This

The golden autumn evening light sifts lazily though the blinds in the skylight. Stripes of light, stripes of darkness alternate on the walls, the white board, the bookcase full of another department’s binders, the filing cabinets that hum dully - between the modems and the fans cooling them, there’s no room for paper files anymore.

Dana - Scully, she’s Scully again and the thought of it makes her tingle all over - Scully sits in her brand new mid-range office chair, her fingers drumming lazily on the smooth surface of her brand new desk. She’s trying to work out how to work the Bureau’s email client. It’s nothing but a mess of terrible drop down menus and folders and a wobbly cursor that refuses to cooperate.

“No, damn it! Star it, it’s not SPAM. Mulder!”

Mulder looks up from his own computer, glasses on his nose. He’s endearingly silver foxy, hunched over a bit, trying his best to touch type. “Huh?”

“Damn it, Mulder. If they’d told me I was gonna have to deal with this hack software built by some senator’s cousin’s brother-in-law’s shitty contractor that’s nothing but a CIA front, I wouldn’t have come back at all.” She pushes back in her chair, rolls halfway over to his station. “At least at the hospital they let me use my iPhone.”

He reaches his hand out to her over the back of his chair. “I know, I’m not having much luck either. Can you remind me what two-step verification is?”

Their index fingers hook across the space. Mulder pulls and her chair rolls across the floor, collides with his. He turns in his seat, reaches out for her across the back of his chair, and strokes her hair. 

“What are we doing here, Scully?” he mumbles and plays with the ends of her very expensive blow-out. She doesn’t mind getting a bit mussed. 

She smiles and leans into his touch. It’s safe, she thinks. The door is closed, her heart recently opened to extreme possibilities. Strangely, this cramped space, with marginally better heating than 20 years ago and a partner whose body never stopped getting in her way, is the safest place she knows. 

“I don’t know,” she mutters back, “I don’t know what we’re doing here, and yet…” After a few beats, she looks up at him, and - oh no, Mulder, no - she knows he’s misunderstood. Behind his little spectacles his eyes are suddenly glassy, shifting restlessly. He traps his tongue between his lips and looks away.

“Mulder, no, come on, what’s wrong?” the doctor soothes her lifetime patient.

“I just,” he starts, slips off his glasses and lets them dangle in his hand as he rests his wrist on the back of his chair. He massages the bridge of his nose. “I can’t shake this feeling, Scully. I know it’s wrong and I know I’ve ruined everything by thinking this before, but you know, once those neural pathways are worn in, they’re hard to unwear.”

“That’s not how it works…,” she smiles and closes her eyes.

“What?”

“That’s not how the neuroscience of obsessive compulsive behavior works.” 

“You know what I mean,” he says and fixes those puppy dog eyes on her. This is so predictable. 

“You think you somehow coerced me into this.”

“I can’t help it.”

“And I can’t help you if you don’t understand that we’ve always been in this together.”

He shifts his legs, stretches them out and crosses them at the ankle. Seeing him in a suit, in dress shoes, honestly was motivation enough. She won’t say this. There’s no use appealing to a self-flagellator’s vanity.

“What is it?” he asks.

She closes her eyes in exasperation, but reaches out in the only way she can think to, and hooks her Jimmy Chooed heel over the top of his foot, rubs a little. “I’m not a mind-reader, Mulder. What’s what?”

“This. What’s this we’re in together?” Again with the ambiguity.

She stands up, pushes her office chair away. It hits the side of her desk with a soft thud. She’s glad she’s wearing pants. It allows for easier movement and a more sweeping gesture. She steps over his knees and faces him, straddling those wool-clad, miles-long legs.

“Well, isn’t this a familiar scene from one of your movies,” she chuckles and ruffles his hair.

His wet eyes glitter and there’s that goofy smile. “The dialogue was never this good. Nor the acting.”

“Look,” she redirects this conversation. She motions for him to give her his hands. Stupid, stupid man. “Listen to me very carefully. This,” she continues and squeezes his left hand, still holding the glasses, “is what it is. If we can’t be secure in that then I don’t know what good we’re doing each other. We have work to do and I want to do it with you.”

“Work.” His voice is tinged with bitterness.

“This is an office, Mulder. It’s meant for work. That’s all I’m saying.”

“So…” he clamps his right hand around the back of her left knee where she stands. She slaps his hand away, swings her leg over the top of his and leans back against the desk. They stay there for a minute, silently smirking at each other.

Now both of them are bathed in it, stripes of light, stripes of dark. All’s as it should be. When he stands up, kicks the chair away, and leans over to capture her mouth with his, she doesn’t fight. It’s sweet, soft and warm, like the light, like the expensive fabric of the finest suit she’s ever owned. His clean shaven face is silkier than it’s ever been, his tongue as velvety as last time they did this. Too long ago. 

They stay like that, kissing and nuzzling, right there in their shared office, my God, for longer than they ever have before. Even longer than that time in May of 2000, the night of the secret fishnet stockings. She feels something wet on her face and realizes that he’s starting to cry again. He sniffles, less than charmingly, right in her ear, mumbles an apology. She pauses for two seconds, kisses his eyelids, then draws his mouth to hers again. She doesn’t want to turn back to her email, doesn’t want to leave this safe space, doesn’t want to stop - 

Scully’s phone chirps in her jacket pocket. She cranes her neck away from Mulder’s needy lips, and he nuzzles along the column of her throat with his nose as she wedges the bulky Blackberry against her year. 

“Director.” She tries to get away but he’s got her trapped against the desk. He holds her so, so tenderly. “Yes, of course, sir. We’ll be right up. Thank you.” 

She hangs up and drops the phone with a thud on Mulder’s desk. 

“Agent.” His mouth is on hers again, for a second. “We have a meeting.”

“Can I see you tonight?” he whispers.

“You’re seeing me now.”

“Can I _see_ you?” he whispers again.

A thrill runs through her body. “Yes. Now let’s get you cleaned up and go upstairs.” She swipes at the Yves Saint Laurent lip stain on his mouth. It’s not his shade. She’ll see his true colors later.


End file.
